Booz Allen Wins $85M AFRL Contract for Digital Aerospace System Design
Booz Allen Hamilton has secured an $85 million, 10-year contract with the Air Force Research Lab to develop mission-driven digital engineering and system-level design methods for next-generation aerospace vehicles.
Booz Allen Hamilton has secured an $85 million, 10-year contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to pioneer next-generation digital design methods for aerospace platforms. Under the "Digital System-Level Mission-Driven Integrated Design Methods for Aerospace Systems" contract, awarded out of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, Booz Allen emerged victorious over seven competing bidders. The research effort fundamentally transforms how military aircraft and space vehicles are conceptualized, moving the service away from isolated component optimization toward holistic, mission-integrated system design.
The project directly aligns with a 2024 Air Force request for information (RFI) that highlighted operational bottlenecks caused by fragmented engineering workflows. Rather than designing sub-systems—such as airframes, propulsion units, power distribution, and thermal management—in traditional silos, the initiative enforces a unified paradigm. Under this framework, trade-offs across all physical and operational parameters are evaluated simultaneously against end-state mission outcomes. Technical execution will heavily rely on model-based systems engineering (MBSE), operational data science, high-performance research computing, and modern DevSecOps software practices.
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